Hermione savoured the missive as if it were a box of the finest chocolates. She examined the outer wrapping, an envelope of purest white, laid stationery, almost certainly with a high rag content, her name inked precisely at its centre in densest black with a Dictaquill's perfect calligraphy.

She lifted it to her nose, but it smelled only of fresh paper, not of him.

She opened the flap, unsealed for Kingsley's benefit, and retrieved a single sheet of matching notepaper. As she unfolded it, she noted that the same anonymously ornate script filled less than a third of the page.

---

Dear Miss Granger,

My thoughts are with you in your time of sadness. I hope learning the truth behind the attack will bring you solace, even though, as you must realise, if this information were generally known, suspicion would fall upon me.

An unidentified accomplice waylaid Krum when he left his appointment. They passed on a message that Thicknesse wished to see him in private. Mulciber the Younger was waiting with Thicknesse to impose the Imperius Curse. Krum resisted, and before Veritaserum could be administered, he announced your shepherd's pie isn't homemade.

He protected you to his last breath,

Prometheus

---

Hermione read the note half a dozen times before she slipped it under her pillow. She wished that her mother could have been here to bring her hot chocolate. For a fleeting moment she could've pretended someone could make it better, though no one could fix what was wrong. She wished the boys were somewhere else. Then she could make her own cocoa, but until a Fidelius Charm was added to The Burrow, Harry's protection superseded her desires. Above all, she clung to the faint warmth that radiated from her bracelet and wished for the warmth of Severus's body instead.

---

She feigned sleep when Muriel called her down for dinner, imagining the glee with which the old gossip would interrogate her. No, she could wait until the whole house slept... if she ever felt like eating again.

She crawled under the covers in case anyone should come up and try the door. Numbly, she slipped off her bra and her jeans, curling up in her t-shirt and knickers.

She wished she could have realised her mistake later. Couldn't fate have allowed Viktor to die believing she was his?

In all this mess, that was what she was second guiltiest about.

---

Her bracelet's unwavering warmth suggested he wore his watch chain next to his skin, but she wanted more. As if his stilted and formal letter had the power to bring him closer, her hand reached under the pillow. It withdrew instantly, and she sucked her hot fingertips. Cautiously, she peeled the pillow back and unfolded the letter, which felt as if it had been held over a candle flame.

New words glistened beneath his nom de guerre, and she leapt from the bed, ransacking the drawers of the dressing table until she found ink and quill with which to reply.

---

'Are you alone?' The Dictaquill again.

"Yes," she scribbled hastily in the smallest writing she could manage. "God, yes!" She bounced on her stool, waiting to see if she was right, if Severus had had the foresight to cast a Protean spell on her letter before he entrusted it to Kingsley.

'Dearest one,' she read, Severus's familiar spiky handwriting as small as her own. 'Forgive me the brusqueness of the above message. In these dangerous times, I cannot allow anyone to suspect the depth of feeling I have for you, not even our allies.'

"Nothing to forgive. I miss you."

---

'And I you. I wish I could hold you close and glower at any idiot who tried to make a nuisance of themselves until they ran for cover.'

Hermione actually smiled. "I would like that," she wrote. "The bracelet helps, but I wish I could touch you, smell you."

'As long as you are safe. Kingsley sent word he had pulled you out of the Ministry. You are safe?'

"I am; Ron might not be. He asked if I was alright? Yes, of course, Ron, being partly responsible for my ex-lover's death is guaranteed to fill the day with sunshine."

---

'Weasley has the tact of a blunderbuss, but I'm glad you haven't lost your sense of humour.'

"You either laugh or you cry... or in this case both. Is it selfish that I keep wishing the timing had been different? I can't work out whether it would have been better for him if he'd died not knowing about you, or if I would just feel less guilty."

'.to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. You have no reason for guilt.'

"Yes, I do."

---

'Beloved, blame Thicknesse, blame Mulciber'

Before Severus could finish his thought, she cut in. "Severus, you don't understand. Yes, I feel as if I'm somehow responsible for his death. I can't help wondering if I could have stopped Ron and Harry. Maybe I should have tried to hex them. I don't know. Maybe I should have sent Viktor to Quiberon. I knew I was in love with you. I hoped I might fall for Viktor, but I don't know if I ever believed."

'You did love him. You may not have been in love, but he knew that you cared.'

---

Hermione swiped the tears from her face. "Did you know that I looked up how to say I love you in Bulgarian? I used it once. Then, less than an hour later I found out you—" She hesitated briefly, groping for the right wording. "...returned my affection in kind. How could he ever believe me?"

She paused again, but it seemed that Severus couldn't come up with a quick answer.

"What's worse, though, is I should be missing him, and I do, but I miss you more. I can't stop thinking how relieved I am that it wasn't you."